A Few Screws Loose
by Yaodai
Summary: Or a handful of one-shots with the exwires doing stuff.
1. The Crown

**"The Crown"**

It all started with a tragedy. The tragedy sounded like a muffed crunch of something breaking.

Rin was at the dorm where the Kyoto trio resided, with a difficult mission of obtaining Suguro's notes without Suguro knowing about it – probably a very stupid thing to do, since he could just ask for them, but Rin felt bad enough as he was. And Suguro already ended up helping him with a thing or two...

Besides, getting the notes should be pretty easy, since it was that time of the day Bon used to spend at the gym, so only Konekomaru and Renzou were home. And they were cooperative enough – as long as he returns the notes after making copy of them, there wasn't a problem in keeping the whole thing secret. Nobody was getting hurt, after all. And the notes were really good. It would be easier for Rin to just use his brothers stuff, but Yukio had the bad tendency to skipping many thing he found unnecessary or doing strange shortcuts that Rin was unable to make sense of. Suguro, on the other hand, liked to have everything in order and he was even making these little bubbles with bonus information about how to do stuff and why. Rin loved these and they were probably the one thing, that keep his math grades actually decent.

So, as usually, he showed up while Suguro was away and waited for Konekomaru to hand him the notes, exchanging jokes with Shima. But this time, he made a mistake and sat down on the closest bed. And then, there was a crack. He patted the covers, looking for the source of noise. Then he found two pieces of plastic.

"Oh dear!" Konekomaru gasped, almost dropping the papers. "That's Suguro's headband!"

"Man, you're screwed," Shima added lazily from his bed, not even putting his manga away. He sounded way more amused by the whole situation than freaked out, like Konekomaru was.

"So what?" Rin shrugged, looking at two pieces of plastic in his hands. "It's not like he don't have more of these. Hell, I can give him back the hairpin if he really needs it..."

"You don't understand!" The little monk protested. "This is The Headband!"

"...so?" Okumura blinked. Indeed, he didn't understand, why they were making so big deal out of it. It was just a hair accessory, these were cheap.

"The first thing Suguro brought when we moved here to start the cram school," Konekomaru explained in hurry.

"So it's like sentimental thing?"

"Yeah, that would be it," Shima rolled his eyes and sighed deeply. "Seriously, Bon at times act like he's neurotic, or something."

"Try to say it again after I take that manga of yours," for whatever reason, Rin felt obliged to defend Suguro. Because he wasn't that bad. And Shima liked to keep his comics on hand and didn't really liked to share either.

"Do you want to borrow my manga?" Renzou smirked, knowingly.

"Okay, maybe not!" Rin grimaced. "I sort of don't want to think where they have been..."

"The bathroom is pretty close, you know."

"Now I really don't want to touch them..." Rin shuddered." Even with a stick!"

"He's just pulling your leg," Neko sighed.

"Am I?" Renzou grinned widely, clearly having way too much fun than he was supposed to. At times, Okumura was pretty sure that the pink haired boy was acting like pervert only because he was having way to much fun with people and their reaction to drop it.

"So, I'm in trouble, yeah?" Rin sighed, changing the topic back to the important thing.

"Well, duh!"

"What if I buy him a new one?"

"Dude, sentimental? Does that word ring any bells?"

"I don't know, Shima. I'm sure Ryuji would appreciate the gesture…" Konekomaru mumbled hopefully with a small smile on his mouth.

"Yeah, right after giving him a black eye!" Renzou waved his hands around like he was trying to punch something to further prove his point.

"He's not that bad!"

"Oh yeah? Remember, when I beheaded his teddy? He beaten the crap out of me!"

"Teddy?" Rin blinked, a little lost in the conversation.

"It was actually a rabbit," Konekomaru explained, then eyed Shima. "And we were seven."

"That's cute," Rin chuckled, trying to imagine little Bon with his little headless rabbit. His brain had a little problem with creating image of Suguro without his wild hair and piercing. He knew that the rebellious look was quite a new feature, but it was just working for Bon so well it was hard to portrait him without it. So there was tiny little Ryuji in his mind, running around with his cute tiny little piercing and headless plushie, with the wild blond streak on top. Then, there also was mini–version of Shima, pink–haired and running for his life…

"Stop giggling, that's weird!" Renzou groaned.

xxx

Rin talked them into going to the store together. They knew Bon really well, after all, so who could be better to choose something that Suguro would find acceptable? Especially when Rin himself hadn't slightest idea which hair accessories counted as cool and manly and which one were considered girly and would lead to Bon trying beat him into a bloody pulp. But sometimes, even he was able to spot the obvious.

There was this one hairband, right in the middle of pink–red–violet section, standing out proudly like the crown jewels, sparkling so intense that Rin's eyes started watering. It was almost like somebody installed bunch of tiny little lightbulbs in there and then shaped them so they looked just like bunch of pinkish crystals. The pattern was really complicated too – and because of all that sparkling it was hard to recognize where the butterfly started and the flower ended. And then, there was the glitter…

In one world, it was an absolute mess.

"Guys!" Rin gasped, unable to wrestle his eyes away from the sparkling atrocity. "You just have to see that!"

"See what?" Renzou turned around, completely not expecting the horror he was about to face. Then he screamed.

"What is all that rocket about?" Konekomaru sighed, joining the group. He also stared down at the shiny eyesore. "And what do you want to do with that?"

"This," Rin said in very serious voice. "Is a crown."

"...and?" Neko raised eyebrow.

"Don't you see? This is perfect!"

"If you are thinking what I'm thinking then you are suicidal," Renzou commented with a painful grimace.

"But this is a crown!" Rin protested. "I just... I have to!"

"And I do not want to have anything to do with it at all," Konekomaru said, raising his hands and slowly walking away.

"You are ditching us?" Renzou protested. "How can you? Don't you want to see the reaction, when-"

"I definitely don't want to hear the reaction," the little monk mercilessly cut in before Shima was even able to finish the sentence.

"I never knew you are so heartless!" Rin moaned. He wanted the crown.

"There are many thing you don't know," Renzou declared trying to sound mysterious, but his voice was slightly cracking.

They ended up walking with one normal headband, since Rin preferred to stay alive and one sparkling crown. The clerk from the shop was looking at them even after they closed the doors behind them.

xxx

"Hey, Bon..." Rin started, desperately trying to keep his face straight. But the smile was traitorous, no matter how hard he tried his mouth just keep on twitching and trying to form a grin.

"Told you to not call me that!" Suguro growled, but that wasn't actually an angry growl.

"Look, I need to tell you something..."

"You failed something again?"

"No!" Rin protested quickly. "Well, not exactly..."

"You can't not exactly fail an exam!" Suguro groaned.

"Oh, bug off, I'm not here to talk to you about tests!"

"Then what is it? Literature?"

"Why do you think that the only reason I have to talk to people is to beg for help with my grades?"

"Because they are horrendous?"

"Oh, bug off!" Rin grunted unhappily. Suguro was kind of right, his grades were bad. Not on the level of we-are-throwing-you-out-of-the-school-now, but they were pretty close. And he actually had to ask for help once or twice. Surprisingly enough it was just the thing to put Suguro in really good mood which was making the situation even worse from Rin's perspective.

"So what do you want?" Ryuji finally decided to surrender.

"I sort of broke your headband the other day..." Rin said, trying to not chuckle.

"And what's so funny about that?" Ryuji instantly looked furious, his eyes narrowed and there was a very painful death in them. Suguro never ceased to amaze with his ability to turning the death glare so quickly.

"Hey, it's just a headband!"

"You can't wander around and break things that belongs to other people! Even if it's just a stupid headband!"

"I'm not finished!" Rin protested. "I brought you a new one!"

"And you think that is going to solve everything?"

"Hey! I'm a decent human being here!" Rin protested. "I admitted my mistake, and all!"

"How did you even got near enough my stuff to destroy something?" Suguro groaned, massaging his temples. He was so going to get a migraine attack…

"That's actually a pretty long story," Okumura chuckled nervously, then just handed him headbands. Both of them, because he needed Bon to stop asking questions before Shima and Neko end up in trouble… and he doubted he would be brave enough to give Suguro the crown on any other time.

"What the hell is it?" Suguro stared, completely forgetting that he was supposed to be angry at Rin. The pure horror of the sparkling atrocity had truly astonishing powers.

"A crown," Rin answered, now with a wide, toothy grin on his face.

"And what the hell do you think I'm supposed to do with that?"

"Well..."

"You don't want to tell me..."

"Well, it's not like you will get any less manly with that in your hair," Rin shrugged, trying to keep his face straight and uninterested.

"Why in the world would I even want to wear that?!" Suguro screeched.

"Because you're manly enough to wear it around like it is nothing? Or are you?"

"Oh, what the hell?!" Suguro growled. "You are freakin' baiting me!"

"What?" Rin chuckled. "Are you looking for a way to chicken out of this? Princess?"

Suguro, naturally was too proud for his own good and he ended up with the sparkling disaster of a crown on his head when the lessons at the cram school started. He even gained bonus points by acting like nothing was wrong with the picture at all. He was actually good enough at it that most of the class didn't spotted anything different about him. Even Yukio seemed to be oblivious.

Until Kamiki happened, of course.

„What's up with the crown?" Izumo asked, frowning slightly at Ryuji's headband. "You're coming out, or something?"

"It was a dare," he growled, eyeing her angrily, desperately trying to not to blush and failing at it.

"Dare?" the girl blinked. "Who would even care to dare anybody to do something like that? It's just stupid."

"That would be Rin," Konekomaru added helpfully.

Izumo eyed the half–demon boy, who was grinning stupidly in his corner of the classroom, then looked back at Suguro, who still was looking rather stupid. And sparkly. Tiny flakes of glitter managed to invade his hair and were shining like cute little rainbows. A little bit even managed to get on his nose, making Suguro rather amusing to look at, especially with his usual grumpy expression.

"You're both dimwits," she sighed heavily.


	2. The Cake Conspiracy

**"The Cake Conspiracy"**

"Listen very carefully, because I'm going to say it only once!" Rin said as soon, as the boys from the cram school were all around him and the girls were away.

"Okumura, what the hell were you watching this time?" Ryuji moaned and rubbed his temples.

"Oh, shut it!" Rin growled. "I'm sharing here my very complicated plan!"

"You and complicated plan?" Suguro snorted. "Heavens forbid, the world is coming to an end!"

"Oh, go back to your tower, princess!"

"Hey!" Bon protested. One could call him names all he wanted and get close to none reaction, but just use the "p" word, and here he was, eyes shining in rightful fury, hands closed in fists and shaking, ready to smash. It was indeed a powerful weapon and Rin should use it with great care… but sometimes he just couldn't stop himself.

"You begged for it," Shima pointed out.

Suguro grunted something under his breath.

"So, what is this all about?" Renzou decided, that he was more interested with what Rin was going to say. He owed him a little, after all.

"You guys know that the Valentines are close, right?" Rin lowered his voice, so there was no chance of overhearing him.

"Well, yes, what's about it?" Konekomaru raised eyebrows in confusion.

"I think we should do something for girls this year!"

"Dude, you got the genders wrong," Suguro pointed out. "The girls are the ones who cooks stuff, not the other way around."

"And why not?" Rin tilted his head to the left. "Besides, don't you think it would be nice to get something too?"

Doing something nice was actually his modus operandi. It all started with him thinking how much of a loner Eyebrows was and how nice it would to make her day a little bit better at least on valentines. Because Rin knew how the loneliness could hurt rather well and he really didn't want anybody to felt something like that if there was a way to fix it.

But baking a cake for only one girl from their cram school group would suggest a thing - and he really didn't like Eyebrows that way - so he decided to do something for Shiemi and Paku too. Even if the last one dropped out, she was still a part of the group, at least in his mind.

"He's sort of right, you know..." Shima smiled broadly. "Besides, everybody knows that girls love chocolate!"

"And throwing it in your face," Suguro rolled his eyes.

"Well, more chocolate for me, then," Shima merely shrugged.

It actually had happened once. He was following that one girl and pretty randomly decided to declare his feeling for her. It all was going well, until he opened his mouth and then... well, he came back home alone, rather sticky, but not hungry. "So, what are you planning, Okumura?"

"I'm going to bake cake. Cakes, for girls." Rin happily explained.

"You are supposed to put the chocolate in the locker. You can't stuff the cake in there, the locker is too small!"

"Yeah, well, that's why I'm asking for help!"

"Okumura, we can't make the lockers bigger..." Bon massaged his temples, already feeling like migraine was approaching.

"Yeah, but you can help me with getting them to their rooms, right?"

"And how in the world are you planning to pull that off?" Konekomaru gasped. "Especially if you don't want them to know about this?"

"Well..." Rin said slowly. "We can always use hairpin or something..."

"I am so not breaking into girls dorms!" Ryuji protested immediately.

"You know how to picklocks?" Rin blinked, looking at him strangely.

Suguro only grunted something under his breath.

"He can," Shima answered for him. "But that's... not a very good plan, pal. Just imagine the rocked if somebody would catch us in the act! They would think we are bunch of panties-stealers, or something!"

"We could always..."

"No!"

"But it worked before!"

"No!"

"But this is really important!"

"We are not crossdressing again!"

"Spoilsports," Renzou huffed, being probably the only one in the whole group, who found the idea funny.

"But if not this, then how we are going to get the cake to their rooms?"

Suguro scratched his chin.

"You can always ask Shiemi's mom, I guess," he finally shrugged. "But getting Izumo cake in the place is going to be tricky. I think we should just ask Paku for help."

"But that wouldn't be half as fun as little cosplay!" Shima protested.

"Man…" Ryuji shook his head. "There is definitely something wrong with you, but I'm afraid I don't even know where to start!"

"You're just a killjoy!" Renzou grunted. "You wouldn't recognize fun even if it would kick you in the rear, my friend! Poor soul, you're just like that old lady, who is all just grunts and moans and zero understanding of youth at all!"

"What the hell is up with putting me in feminine roles?!" Bon growled, standing up and grabbing the other boy by the collar. Konekomaru sighed and moved away from the pair.

"That's just what I'm talking about!" Shima waved his finger, completely ignoring the fact, that he was dangling in Bon's grip like a rag doll. "Fun! A foreign concept to you!"

"But I want to bake a cake for Paku too!" Rin protested. Mostly because it looked more and more like Suguro was about to throttle his pink- haired friend and he sort of still needed help of them both.

"Then what's stopping you? This asking her for letting you in much more safer than breaking in anyway," Konekomaru pointed out. "And it's not like anybody would say no to a cake. "

"But there will be no surprise!"

"You can ask her to act surprised."

"But that will be not the same!" Rin moaned. Then looked at Suguro with rather thoughtful expression on his face. Sadly, he already knew what it was about.

"I am so not teaching you how to pick a lock!"

xxx

Rin ended up talking with Paku. Mostly because Bon just wouldn't listen. Or help. Through he needed to ask him sometime where he learned how to pick a lock, because that definitely had some interesting story behind it… on the other hand, asking Shima would be a better idea. He might end up with the entire story, instead of angry Suguro chasing him through the whole campus.

"So, you see, since Izumo is always on her own or grumpier than Suguro, we thought that giving her a cake for valentines would be a pretty nice thing to do…"

"I think you got the genders wrong, Okumura!" Paku chuckled.

"Why everybody is saying that?!" he groaned, gripping on his hair with both hands. "I swear, it's like you people live in different reality than me!"

"Well, it's you who's trying to hit on her…"

"I'm not hitting on anybody!" Rin protested. "what even gave you that idea?!"

"The chocolate cake?" she pointed out. "On valentines?"

"But I'm not a girl, we went over this!" he sighed heavily. "Look, I just like to cook and this seems like a good idea. Maybe she would even smile, or something. So… will you help us? Just turning around and act like we are not bringing the cakes?"

"Cakes?" Paku immediately spotted the one thing Rin didn't want her to spot. Figures.

"Well, yeah!" he massaged the back of his neck, feeling slightly embarrassed. "We wouldn't just left you out, you know!"

Paku smirked and then shook her head. Rin bit his lip, feeling like he was dying a little on the inside. Does that meant she disagreed? That she refused to help and didn't want the cake?

"You are really bad at this, aren't you?" she asked.

"Um, what?" Rin blinked.

"Asking people to do something for you. You're really bad at this, you know!"

"Ah…" he laughed nervously. "I guess?"

He just never had much time to practice something like that. Back at the monastery, long, long time ago, when his life was still more or less normal and his ass tailless, he was usually way to proud to ask anybody for anything. No matter what the trouble, he could deal with them on his own. Usually using his fists. Which was a rather funny thing, considering how he switched to trying to talk things over now, when he was a fullblown satan spawn.

Still, it was new for him, it was awkward, he was feeling embarrassed and couldn't even see the reason why other people would decide to help him.

"Okay," said Paku with cheerful smile.

"Just like that?" he blinked, feeling more lost than ever.

"Just like that," she shrugged. "Well, if you could make it with raspberry cream..."

"You're awesome!" Rin grinned happily.

xxx

It was a very annoying day and Izumo found herself more tired than usually.

The other girls spend the whole day giggling and shrieking, when trying to being discreet while eyeing the male members of the student community. It was all very loud, very irritating and rather counterproductive, especially on the stealth side.

Why in the world these girls were making noises when they were trying to following somebody?

Izumo shook her head.

It was ridiculous. And would be through the whole next week, considering how strongly everyone was overreacting over stupid chocolate and idiotic crushes that won't survive even to the next month.

At least Paku was normal, so there will be comfortable silence in their room. Good thing that the cram school wasn't until tomorrow. Even if that girl was completely oblivious to most of the things, the guys were not. And boy, if they weren't a loud lot!

Just thinking about it was causing her head to ache. How was she supposed to survive Shima being even more annoying than usually? No mention all the comments the other would spat around the situation, treating it all like some strange joke. This was going to be one long, exhausting nightmare, she through and opened the doors to her room with a heavy sigh.

Then, an intense smell of chocolate hit her in the face.

"What is this?" Izumo asked, staring blankly at the cake that proudly stood on her desk. It wasn't supposed to be there. There was no reason for it to be there. But it was, quite big, round and with thick, reddish cream inside and a neatly done icing on top, but not enough for it to looks like a cake from shop. No, it definitely looked more… homey.

"A cake," Paku answered happily, stating the obvious while chewing on a piece of the second one. Because, apparently, the cakes were travelling in pairs.

"How did it get here?"

"Magic!"

"I still don't understand why there is a cake on my desk..." Izumo sighed heavily.

"Oh, do you really need to be so grumpy?" Paku moaned. "The whole dorm is jealous as heck because we get to have a cake and they don't!"

Izumo sighed and looked at the cake once more. She really didn't care what the other girls were thinking. She also knew pretty well where that cake came from and it was sort of... nice. She didn't really understood what motivated Rin to bake, because they definitely weren't friends, but she couldn't make the warm, tingling feeling in her chest go away.

"I think he made the whole group to work on it," Paku continued as if she was reading in her mind. "The boys were running yesterday for all the evening, back and forth, with bags full of stuff."

"Dimwits," she snorted. Then helped herself to the cake, because well, Rin was one hell of a cook.


	3. That Awkward Story With Porn In It

**"That Awkward Story With Porn In It"**

When you knew what the true face of the world looked like and the fact that the monsters under your bed were real, opening the doors in the middle of a gloomy, stormy evening wasn't too much of a bright idea. You never knew what could be waiting on the other side, after all.

Rin Okumura, naturally, was one of the few people in the world who were ignoring that fact completely. So, after he spend a short moment on groaning how troublesome walking to the doors was, he opened them widely, to check out who was so annoying at such late hour.

Shima looked him straight in the eyes, his face way more serious than it was even before and his skin so pale, than in bad lightning it looked almost ashen.

"I need your help, Okumura!"

"What happened?" Rin blinked, letting the other boy walk inside the room. While it was rather nice gesture it wasn't very bright at the same moment. Shima was rather wet and he was getting the floor soaked. And dirty too, he probably took the shortcut through the lawn again. Yukio was so going to kill him for all that mud in his freshly cleaned room…

"I need you to help me hide my porn!"

"What!" Rin gasped. Because that was the only thing he could force through his throat. Through, he should totally expected something like that from his pink haired friend.

"This is a serious situation!" Shima continued, unfazed by the reaction. "Sir Pheles decided that the staff need to check out how the students are living or if they are doing something illegal by any chance!"

"And... the porn is illegal?" Rin guessed.

"Indeed it is!" Shima gasped, then grabbed him by the shoulders, just to shake Rin as if he was some kind of ragdoll. "So you see, Okumura, the situation is really serious!"

"You do know that Pheles is an otaku too, right?"

"And this is making the whole thing even worse!" Shima moaned painfully. "I'm sure he's going to steal all my precious mangas!"

"Okay," Rin sighed. "But what do you want me to do, exactly? I can't keep these thing in my room!"

"Yeah, but you and your brother are living in a compltely empty building, right?"

Rin slowly nodded.

"So," Shima continued, a smile slowly growing on his mouth. "There is a lot of empty rooms around there and nobody is going to check them out for my stuff right?"

"Yeah, I think so... but why didn't you ask other guys?"

"Neko refused to even touch them," Renzou sniffed. "And last time I asked Bon to help me wih my books he was close to throwing them out of the window."

"Ouch."

"Yeah, ouch," Renzou grimaced. "After that, he forced me to clean the room too! Can you imagine?"

Rin actually could. While Shima was easy going person with a tendency to leave his stuff... around, Bon was getting close to wandering around the room with a ruler. Even during the class everything on his desk was always in order. Which was making easier to snatch a spare pen from him, when in need. Yukio was pretty similar, too, so Rin could relate pretty well.

"So, are you going to help me?"

"Why not?" Rin shrugged. "Just put the books in the boxes or something, so they wouldn't look suspicious!"

"Oh, my, Okumura!" Renzou grinned widely. "Boxes! You are so cunning I'm almost sure you are hiding a dirty secret of your own. Or ten."

"I do not!"

"Aw, don't be like that, we are all pervs here!"

xxx

To hide the porn they firstly had to find place where they could stuck the whole collection and where other people won't accidentally walk in. So, they had to walk around the very, very dark corridors of old building. Well, after Rin cleaned up the floor, since he really didn't want getting on Yukio's bad side.

It wasn't actually as quiet as they expected a mostly abandoned building to be. Things were making creaking noises almost all the time, crackling even after the smallest of winds brushing at building side. The old wooden floor was protesting loudly under every step they made and they were leaving a visible trail of footsteps in the dust.

Rin sneezed, then again and again. Finally, he wiped his nose and cursed.

"Well, now I know what I'm going to do to get away with not doing my homework!" he murmured. "This place is horrid!"

"They," Shima gestured towards a small swarm of coal tars in one of the corners. "Seems to like it as it is."

The little demons indeed seemed to enjoy themselves in the dirt and they were making a lot of noise too, flying around with a high–pitched buzz, giggling and making some more strange noises.

"And this is surprising you how exactly?" Rin commented dryly.

"Hey, don't go all Bon on me! I'm living with the dude already, have some mercy!" Renzou instantly protested.

Rin just walked and continued on moving forward. They were walking for quite awhile, in the direction opposite to where the biggest bathroom was. Bathroom was actually used pretty often, since it had almost the size of a classroom. The bathtub itself looked like a small swimming pool. All of the exwires – and a few of the teachers from the cram school too – liked to visit this place now and then.

On the other side of the building, there were just old dorm rooms and several classrooms, most of them used more like a storage for all the items that were not in use for quite some time, but for whatever reason somebody decided that they could be used at some point in the future. Because of that, one of these storage places could be a really great hiding spot for the collection of dirty comics books, because what is one more cardboard box in a room full of them?

They only had to choose the right room.

It was surprisingly hard and took much more time than they expected.

Behind the first doors they decided to check out, they found a place so filled with stuff that they even couldn't set a single step inside.

"How exactly did they even managed to fill it so much?" Renzou blinked.

"Do you know this pile is touching the ceiling?" Rin mumbled and climbed on his toes to check if this way he would be able to see something inside. But the pile of boxes, cartons and other containers was just too huge.

He could spot more things - really old computer monitors, piles of already yellow newspapers bound together with a ropes that looked like they were going to break at any moment and something that looked like a dog house of all things.

"I'm pretty sure it is indeed."

"What if you need something from the back of the room?" Rin frowned, trying to imagine climbing on top of all this trash, trying to look for something precious. That would be almost like an archeology dig!

"You try to dig it out through the window?"

"You can't open the windows from the outside!"

"Then you're screwed," Renzou shrugged.

Opening the doors to the room on the opposite side was a mistake. The air instantly filled with furious buzz of thousands little winds and shouts of protest coming out of thousands of tiny little demonic throats.

"Close it, close it, close it!" Shima shrieked, being unlucky enough to take a look at what was hiding inside the room. "Before they hit us!"

Coal Tars were not dangerous at all when they were alone or in small group. The little hordes easy to spot on the outside were not considered dangerous either, just slightly annoying.

But the nesting place, filled with huge swarm of these little demons was a completely different story. They could easily swallow up a person, imprisoning the miserable victim forever, like a mobile swamp or a quicksand. This was exactly what was on the other side of the doors. A huge mass of darkness, constantly moving, buzzing, shining with thousand green eyes, staring right at them.

Rin instantly pushed the doors, fighting the force of a horde of demons that already started reaching towards them.

"What the hell!" he shouted as the blue flames danced around his wrists. "Give it up, already!"

With another push the doors finally closed with a loud thud.

"Geez!" Renzou gasped. "This was a close one!"

"Yeah," Rin breathed deeply then eyed his friend angrily. "And thanks for no help at all."

"Hey, you're the strong one here!" Shima protested. "i can't do stuff like that, you know!"

"You still could try help, you know!"

"Hey, it ended up fine, right?" Renzou just laughed. "I knew it would, because you're so strong...!"

"I am so going to leave a handful of bugs in your bed!" Rin groaned.

"No, you wouldn't"

"And what's going to stop me?"

"I think Bon would have a certain issue with you bringing bugs into his pretty, shiny room."

Shima was right, of course. Rin didn't even wanted to imagine the reaction if he showed up with a handful of insects. Suguro would probably made him either put them away where he found them or throw him out of the window with the bugs.

"So..." Renzou eyed the corridor. "I think it would be safer to leave the other room in peace, you know. They probably chewed through the wall already."

"Yeah," Rin nodded. "It looked big.

Behind the next doors they carefully opened, there was a surprisingly empty room. It looked even older than the rest of the building. The wooden boards on the floors were cracked here and there and covered in dirt to the point they seemed to be completely grey. The spider webs were handing from the window and lamps, so thick and big they looked like pieces of cloth.

But there was not a single Coal Tar in sight this time.

To tell the truth, the only item in the entire room was a single, wooden chair, exactly like the ones they were sitting on in the classes.

Oddly enough, the chair was clean; no spider webs were clinging to it, nor it was covered in dirt.

"Weird," Rin said, then shrugged. That was not what they were looking for, so he saw no reason to examine the room further.

After a short moment Renzou decided the same thing and stepped back. Just when he was about to close the doors, he noticed something very strange.

"What the...?" Shima mumbled. He could swear, that the chair was on the opposite side of the room just a moment ago. He turned around... and the chair was just there.

Now that, was just wrong, he decided. A chair teleporting all over the room was just plain wrong. It was probably just an optical illusion of some sort. Besides, the lighting was really bad; the lamps were working only in the corridor and all the windows inside the room were so dirty hardly any sunlight was able to get through.

But, out of curiosity, he decided to made a little, harmless experiment. He closed the doors and then opened them once again, expecting to see the room exactly like it was before. Dirty, dark and completely uninteresting, unless somebody was looking for a horror movie set.

The chair was right on the other side of the doors, waiting.

Shima screamed, jumping away, completely startled. Luckily, the doors closed on their own.

"What's up with you?" Rin looked at him like he went crazy.

"T-the chair!" he managed to stutter.

"What's with it?" Rin blinked, then grabbed the door handle, deciding to see for himself.

"No, don't!" Renzou protested, feeling like his blood was turning into ice.

Rin opened the doors.

Shima was sure, that the chair would jump right at them and bloody beat them to death, but nothing like that happened. Feeling heart racing in his chest, Renzou slowly moved towards the doors and peeked through.

The chair was on the ceiling, innocent and unmoving.

"Okay..." Okumura said slowly. "That's trippy. But I don't know why you freaked out so much about that."

"It wasn't there when I last looked..." he mumbled, feeling embarrassed. Not only friggin' chair was trying to murder him, but it was also making him looks like an idiot!

"Ookay," Rin shrugged. "So not this room either?"

"Not this room either!" He agreed quickly, then eyed the chair once again. Because he was pretty sure it moved again.

Finally, finally Okumura closed the blasted doors and they could walk further into the building.

Shima felt a cold shiver, because he was almost sure, that he heard a creak coming out from behind of the closed doors, that sounded exactly like something moving on wooden surface.

xxx

Eventually they found a room, that was just right. There was no scary chairs inside, nor a colony of Coal Tars. It probably belonged to a janitor once, since they found a collection of very old, very rusty keys, cleaning supplies that were so old they turned into stone–like form that smelled funny, one broom and another broken… the place was filled with boring stuff like that.

Then, because Shima was moaning about all the work there was to do, Rin eventually caved in and promised that he would help with packing the whole collection. For, once, Shima wasn't lying. There really was a lot of books to pack. And at some of them, Rin really didn't wanted to look up close, because even the covers were slightly disturbing.

"Seriously, what's up with that?" he asked, trying very hard to peel his eyes off of something that looked like the fruit of a very unholy alliance between a polypody and an octopus.

"Ah, these?" Renzou grinned. "These are mostly for fun. Seriously, they are so ridiculous it's hard not to laugh... besides, the anatomy is totally , look!"

"I would rather not..."

"But her torso is seriously on the other side than it's supposed to be!"

"Well, maybe the polypody monster broke her!" Rin said quickly, very much not wanting to see the terrific images inside the book.

"Nah, the artist just really wanted to show how nice butts he can draw."

"I can't understand how you can find these things funny, Shima..."

Rin groaned and decided to work faster. The less time it would take to hide that nasty stuff, the less time he would spend on looking at them. But sometimes, one just had to stop. Rin looked at the cover in his hand, because something seemed to be wrong with the picture.

"It's just me, or this one looks like that yaoi stuff?"

"It's not just you," Shima shrugged.

"Why do you have a yaoi book on your shelf?"

"Well, girls seemed to fancy that stuff, so I decided to do some research..." Shima scratched his head. "It was a little bit on the odd side, but if you add boobs in the right places, it's pretty decent. "

"That's just weird... "Rin put the manga back. "Were you reading this stuff that week when Bon and Neko were walking weirdly?"

"When they were trying to stick their butts to the walls, you mean?" Shima grinned. "Well, they knew what I was reading."

And it was actually pretty funny too, through till this day Shima wasn't sure who was making fun of the other guy. While he was deliberately touchy-feely with them, they decided to stay with they back glued to the walls in over the top, very demonstrative way.

Rin was whistling happily, carrying a pile of boxes filled with books like it wasn't ridiculously heavy.

Renzou was following him with hands occupied by another two boxes, but he wasn't too happy to visit the gloomy corridors once again. He was looking around nervously, expecting that at any given moment he would see it.

He was sure that the chair was observing him, hiding in the dark shadows, waiting for the right moment to strike.

"You sure this is a good idea?" he mumbled. "We leave a visible trail in the all the dust around here after all..."

"What, you are freaking out now?" Rin just snorted.

"Well, this corridor is weirdly long!" Renzou protested. "We are walking much longer that it would take to encircle the whole building from the outside!"

"I'm pretty sure it was just Mephisto screwing up with space around here," Rin somehow managed to shrug with all these boxes he was carrying and not drop anything.

"Yes, just a Demon King dicking around with time and space, nothing to worry about!"

"Why are you suddenly so skitterish?"

"I'm just worry about all my porn! Are you sure nobody is going to find it?" Shima said quickly, blushing with embarrassment. Admitting that he was actually afraid of possessed chair of all things would be just... bad.

"If you really want we can wash the floor later," Rin grinned. "So there would be no footprints at all!"

"Are you crazy?!"

"Um, no?" Rin blinked, "But you're the one who's fretting over a porn stash."

"Hey!" Shima automatically protested. "These ale limited editions and all! This stuff is precious!"

"Even the gay porn?"

"Oh bug off, that was one book. One!"

At least Okumura making fun of him helped to pass some time and they finally reached the hiding spot. Then it was just a simple case of putting everything so it looked like nothing suspicious and they could head back.

Shima was almost sure, that the creaking noise he heard when they were returning, was not only caused by the issues with old wooden floors and stairs.

And when he finally breathed out on the outside, enjoying the clean, fresh air, he could swear that he was able to see the chair for a very short moment, standing by one of the windows.

xxx

Suguro walked into the room, then blinked, noticing the bare shelves on Shima side of the room. He looked around the room, then back at Shima.

"Why all the porn is gone?"

"Oh, now you care!" Renzou grunted.


End file.
